I cooked a big handful each of kidney beans,
garbanzo beans, and northern beans.
Made for a quart of cooked beans.
I cooked the beans separately in three different pots
in case the cooking times were different.
They all cooked in the same amount of time - 35 -40 minutes.
I never bother to soak my beans overnight.
All I do is rinse them,
put them in water, bring to a boil,
and reduce to simmer until al dente.
I don't salt the water either.
Mr. Hawthorne said salting beans
causes the skins to come off -
something he gleaned from Food Network.

This little factoid might come in handy.
I was just reading Deb Perelman's blog, Smitten Kitchen,
about her ethereally smooth hummus
and her trick is to peel the chickpeas.
Might have to give this a try.